My Favorite Things Right Now

 

The season is on the verge of changing.  Can you feel it?  Here in Pennsylvania, we have been in a month-long (or more) cycle of 3-4 inches of snow followed by a deep freeze about every few days, but this week it's warming up, finally, and energizing everyone.

My children (the older ones at least) have returned to in-person learning four days a week now.  And I feel this season of being T-O-G-E-T-H-E-R 24/7 slipping away as quickly and quietly as it arrived.  In some ways it is a relief.  My son definitely needed to go back to school.  In other ways, it feels a bit wistful. 

Who just comes in to your life, turns everything upside-down, sits on your couch day and night with the presence of an elephant and then just leaves without saying a word?

Oh, the Pandemic will be with us for a while yet, I'm sure, but still something tells me the winds are changing.  The children are leaving again and going back to their semi-normal routines.  They need to go, but I will miss them.

This was supposed to be a "my favorite things" post, but I guess my children are my favorite things.  And my favorite things about the quarantine time we've had together are that time stopped for a while.  We had endless hours to play games together, do puzzles, listen to music together, watch movies, tickle each other, snuggle the little ones, eat all the food with no accountability whatsoever, go for walks together, laugh about life together, give talks and take the sacrament together.  Of all of the things we supposedly missed during the last year, very little of what matters was missed.

And for that I am grateful.

It's funny how I could have written a very different post about the year that has passed, but while my heart filled up while looking at the good, my mind had no space left to dwell on the bad.  What interesting lessons we learn...and God is the perfect teacher.